1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for preparing a uniformly aligned zeolite supercrystal, a method for preparing a uniformly aligned polymer film and mass and a uniformly aligned zeolite supercrystal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Zeolite is a generic name of crystalline aluminosilicate, which constitutes the pore skeleton of zeolite molecules and bears an anionic charge for each aluminum atom. Cations for compensating such anion charges are present within the very fine pore space and the remaining pore space is usually filled with water. The 3-dimensional pore structure, shape and size of the zeolite molecules varies depending on the type of zeolites, and the pore diameter is usually corresponding to the size of molecules. Therefore, based on the type of zeolites, zeolite has the size selectivity or shape selectivity for a molecule entering into the pore, and thus, zeolite is called as a molecular sieve.
Meanwhile, there are many known zeotype molecular sieves wherein a part or all of silicon (Si) and/or aluminum (Al) atoms constituting the structural skeleton of zeolite molecule are replaced with other elements. For example, a porous silicalite-typed molecular sieve in which aluminum atoms are completely eliminated, an alpo (AlPO4)-typed molecular sieve in which silicon atoms are replaced with phosphorous atoms, and other molecular sieve or zeotype material wherein skeleton metal atoms are partially replaced with various metal atom such as Ti, Mn, Co, Fe and Zn have been developed and widely used. The materials described above are derived from zeolites and thus generally called as zeolites in the art, while they not belong to zeolites in terms of mineralogy. Accordingly, the term “zeolite” used herein refers to a broad-sensed zeolite including zeotype molecular sieves described previously.
Zeolites are widely used in the field of households and various industries serving as a catalyst for cracking petroleum, adsorbent, water-absorbing agent, gas-purifying agent, additives for detergent and soil improving agent. In particular, zeolites are very useful as an ion exchanger to eliminate heavy metals, radioisotopes and diverse ionic pigments in industrial waste water.
In addition, zeolites have been suggested to be applicable as innovative materials because of their nanoporous structure (1). For example, zeolites have been reported to be applicable as a host for a three-dimensional memory material (2), a light energy storage device (3-5), a nanoelectrode (6), a quantum beam or point of semiconductor (7), a molecular circuit (8), a photosensitive device (9), a luminant (10), a nonlinear optical material (11) or a laser luminant.
In order for zeolites to find application as innovative materials, it is necessary to develop the technology to organize the zeolite crystals with a nanometer or micrometer size into uniformly aligned, two- and three-dimensional compact structures (zeolite supercrystals). However, there have been no suggestions to report the technology for preparing a uniformly aligned zeolite supercrystal (13).
The present inventors have explored methods for linking zeolite microcrystals through chemical linkages in a two-dimensional or three-dimensional manner (14-16; Korean Pat. No. 0335966; WO01/96106). However, the approaches have not given us the ability to control the orientation of the zeolite crystals with respect to the substrate plane due to the intrinsic propensity of the microcrystals to align in such orientations that lead to maximum face-to-face contacts between the crystals and the substrates.
Throughout this application, various patents and publications are referenced and citations are provided in parentheses. The disclosure of these patents and publications in their entities are hereby incorporated by references into this application in order to more fully describe this invention and the state of the art to which this invention pertains.